The present invention is directed to articles which are voidable through the application of radiant energy. The present invention is further directed to using a controlled flash of radiant energy to cancel articles or to create an image.
Numerous articles are used in everyday life which must be identified, validated and/or cancelled. Such articles include checks, currency, stock certificates, coupons, food stamps, postage stamps or the like. While methods are presently available for mechanically scanning or reading such documents, the process of cancelling and/or validating such articles is generally slowed by employing a cancellation technique which involves a mechanical process of stamping or destroying the article. Any mechanical device is subject to wear and tear which will shorten its usable lifetime or require the assistance of repair personnel.
Likewise, mechanical methods are generally employed in the printing industry. Ink or the like is placed onto a substrate in the form of images as pictures, symbols and/or alpha numeric characters by one of several well known methods such as letterpress, letterset, offset, gravure, thermography, ink jet, laser imaging, ion deposition, lithography or other mechanical and/or computerized methods. In the mass production of articles requiring individually identifiable codes such as bar codes, arabic numbers, MICR (magnetic ink character recognition), and others, the usual methods of placing these identification codes on each article are mechanical number heads, ink jet, laser or ion deposition imaging. Such methods severely limit the speed at which the article can be encoded. For example, mechanical bar code imaging is limited to processing a web of paper at speeds of 500 feet per minute; laser imaging to about 100 feet of paper per minute; ion deposition to about 400 feet of paper per minute; and ink jet to about 700 feet of paper per minute, to produce images of bar codes which will meet standards of reproduction set forth by the industry. These speed limitations severely inhibit production of articles and because production of such articles without encoding can be done at speeds of 2000 feet of paper per minute, encoded articles are far more costly to the buyer. Quality of the identification code whether bar code, OCR or other, is adversely affected by the speed of the web of articles being produced. Additionally, individual article production is also limited in a similar way when being produced from sheets of a substrate.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a non-mechanical method of printing. It is a further object of the present invention to provide encoded articles which can be easily voided through the use of non-mechanical means.